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Dell XPS 15 9560 refresh, or Why does Dell hate fingerprint readers?

TL;DR: Dell has a habit of announcing/leaking nice laptops with fingerprint readers, then removing that option before selling the product.

As you may remember, my nigh-dream laptop was the Dell XPS 15 9550, launched at the beginning of 2016. It was awesome. 15" screen in a 14" laptop body, NVMe storage, nice screen, decent graphics card to drive that screen.

One of my main qualms was the lack of a fingerprint reader. I've come to rely on that reader since my Windows Live/Xbox password is randomly generated, and changed regularly. (I'm weird, I know.)

Except Dell pulled a Dell once again. See, when the refreshed XPS 13 launched at the end of last year, it too initially launched with a fingerprint reader listed as an option. Heck, the service manual to this day lists the fingerprint reader as a serviceable part. But when it officially was available for sale? Fingerprint reader had been scrubbed from every press image, no mention of it on the official website, and asking a Dell rep about the option ended up with awkward silences and them attempting to redirect the conversation.

So... Fast forward to Friday this week. Dell officially puts up the website for the new XPS 15 9560. And guess what's missing from the description and press shots once again? You guessed it. The fingerprint reader. There is one oblique shot of the deck of the laptop where you can see it sort of, but all of the straight-on shots have it removed.

Why do you hate fingerprint readers Dell? Why?!?

Last edited by James; 01-08-2017 at 07:41 AM.
Reason: screwed up italics tags the first time.

As of today, I've had my new XPS 9560 for about 1.5 months. Other than the occasional quirky behavior with google chrome (Which seems to be more Win10+chrome related than hardware specific) I'm loving the new system. Fingerprint readers is great and super fast. The soft touch deck feels amazing despite being a magnet for fingerprints.

Overall I highly recommend the system. I even am using one of these: Anker USB Power Delivery Type C multiport charger. It has a max output of 40w on the Type C port, but that is more than enough to charge the laptop. I've verified that it will do the 19.5v that the laptop requests @ 2A. The laptop complains if you reboot it with this plugged in (underpowered charger, blah blah) but that doesn't stop it from working correctly.

It's nice to be able to charge my phone and laptop off of a single cord and not have a rat's nest of cables next to my chair at work or at home.